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1 Published by The National Grand Tabernacle^ Order of Galli- j 
1 lean Fishermen^ Baltimore, Md. = 



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NOTE. 

. \ 

It has-been determined to issue a second edition 
of this pamphlet, which, will give the biographies 
of the entire 18 men held for rioting, as told by 
themselves. The arguments in full of Counsel 
Stirling, Waring and Davis, together with the 
tinal instructions of the Court to the Jury in the 
case of Key, will be given in the second edition. 

Concerning the efforts of Messrs. Davis and 
Waring in this trial, we have only space here to 
emphasize their laudable endeavors in behalf of 
their clients' interests. 

Should this pamphlet meet with the success 
such an enterprise deserves, it is intended by the 
publishers to issue a larger work, ^containing a 
complete history of this w^onderful case, together 
with the biographies of all the Judges and Counsel 
employed therein, with their portraits, as well as a 
full record of the testimony taken and the entire 
Court proceedings. 

THOMAS I. HALL, 

B. W. N. G. Ruler, 
Oallilean Fishermen. 

COLOMBUS GORDO jS^, 

Secretary. 



THE 



pVi\ggA I^Li^WD \m, 



K 



ILLUSTRATED 



Published by The N'ati07ial Grand Taberjiacle, Order of Galli- 
lean Fishennen, Baltimore^ Md. 



I^I?,IOEl - - TEllSr OEITTS. 



[FiiEasi? EiDiTioi^.] ( DEC 191889 ' 



bai.timork : 
The American Job Office. 

i88q. 



Copyright, 1889, by Hall & Johnson. 



TO THE PUBLIC 



THE Humanitarian Order, known as The Gallilean 
Fishermen, and noted for its charity and benev- 
olence to suffering humanity, has issued this lit- 
tle pamphlet as an aid in procuring funds to defray the 
legal expenses growing out of the trial of the eighteen 
men indicted for alleged riot, upon the Island of 
Navassa. The pamphlet has also been published in the 
hope that it may fall into the hands of some of the rel- 
atives of these unfortunate men, now residing in other 
places, and who from their portraits herein, will recog- 
nize them and aid in the general contribution started 
in their behalf. 



NAVASSA. 

The Island of Navassa is situated in the Oarribbean Sea, 
(West Indies) 18° 25' north latitude, and 75° 5' longitude west 
of Greenwich, 33 miles southwest of Hayti, and 72 miles east 
of Jamaica. 

It is an upraised Coral Island, filled with Phosphate of Lime. 
In fact, all the cavities of the coral rock forming the frame- work 
of the Island, contain deposits of Phosphate of Lime. 

The Island was discovered in 1856 by -an American, being 
elevated 300 feet above sea level, and is without a sand beach — 
standing conspicuously with its rocky bluff as a perpendicular 
wall. The foot of the Island is incessantly battered by the 
waves, and much of it has already been undermined, forming a 
deep cut several feet high, which would necessarily cause it to 
tumble down, were it not protected by a fringed reef of living 
corals, this reef forming a breaker several feet wide. A man 
could easily walk around the whole Island of Navassa, following 
the foot of the bluff, did the sea not break over it so constantly. 

The upper summit of this Island, at its highest point, is 310 
feet above the level of the sea from southeast to north- 
west. It is heavily timbered by gum and palm trees. The edges 
of the bluff towards the sea and the reef traversing the summit, 
have the form of a basin depressing toward the centre ; indeed, 
the whole summit is similarly shaped. The edges of the upper 
bluff are raised in the shape of an immense brim, followed at 
variable distances by a second elevation of the same character. 
Many caves or holes of various sizes are found in the upper sum- 
mit of the Island, principally near the reefs, and at a depth of 
some 45 feet perpendicular and about 30 in diameter. This up- 



6 

per summit is encircled by a terrace or shore platform, the bluff 
descending without interruption down to the sea, except at the 
northerly point of the Island. 

From an elevation of 15 or 20 feet above sea level, at its ex- 
tremity, or west of what is known as North Point, the height 
rises at Lulu Bay, (the shipping point), to 60 feet, and at the 
southeastern end the Island rises to the height of 65 feet. The 
north side forms a lew rocky bed, and in many places slopes 
down to the level of the sea, until it terminates against the side 
of the Cliff of " N"orth Point." 

The limestone found upon the Island of Navassa is very hard, 
and clinks under the hammer when struck. In sailing around 
the Island, the lowest beds above the level of the sea present 
themselves as a compact rock made of carbonate of lime. 



THE RIOT, 



The eighteen colored laborers indicted by the United States 
Grand Jury, under Section 5323 of the Kevised Statutes of the 
United States, for rioting on the Island of Navassa on the 14th 
of September, 1889, are George S. Key, Henry Jones alias "Texas 
Shorty," Csesar Fisher, Edward Smith alias "Devil," Stephen 
Peters, Charles H. Smith, Charles H. Davis, James H. Eobinson 
alias "Snow," Alfred Jones, James Philips, Edmund Francis 
alias "Blue Ball," Edward Woodfork, James Johnson, Alfred 
Brown, Norman Wooster alias "Juggler," Moses Williams alias 
"Dakota," Amos Lee and James Tascar. 

The indictment is in five counts. The first count charges 
George S. Key with the murder of James Mahon with a pistol, 
and the other seventeen as accessories before the act ; the second 
count charges Caesar Fisher and Henry Jones with the murder of 



Thoma^3 I^. Foster with an axe and stone, and the other sixteen 
as accessories before the act. The third count charges Henry 
Jones with the murder of Joseph Fales with an a:<re, and the 
other seventeen as accessories before the act. The fourth indict- 
ment charges Edward Smith with the murder of Samuel Marsh 
with a stone, and the other seventeen as accessories before the 
act; and the fifth count charges Stephen Peters, Charles H. 
Smith alias John Ward and Charles H. Davis with the murder, 
by means unknown, of Wm. T. Shea, with the other fifteen as 
accessories before the act. 

THE COUi^SEL. 

The Counsel for the men are Messrs Archibald Stirling, Jr., 
J. Edward Stirling, E. J. Waring, Joseph S. Davis, James D. 
Cotter and Kobert B. Graham. 

THE JURY. 

For the trial of Gleorge S. Key on the first count, the follow- 
ing jury were selected. Messrs. Oliver P. Merryman, John B. 
Herold, John Van Tromp, Robert Augustus Denny, James S. 
Beaver, Dr. J. William S. Jordon, Rollins E. Barnes, James H. 
Stone, Joseph Renshaw, Jr., William McLean, August Deichman 
and John Meushaw. 

The Guano deposits on the Island of Navassa are owned and 
controlled principally by Baltimoreans, who are combined into 
stock companies. The Navassa Phosphate Company, with offices 
in the Chamber of Commerce Building, Baltimore,are the princi- 
pal owners, and it is on their property that the trouble occurred. 

Key was convicted of murder in the first degree on December 
2d, 1889, after a trial of twelve days and by a jury that delib- 
erated upon his guilt or innocence for two days and two nights. 
He was indicted for the killing of James Mahon, one of the five 
white officers on the Island of Navassa, September 14th. 



THE court's IKSTRUCTIOl^ TO THE JURY Il^T REGARD %J 
KEY, FOR THE MURDER OF MAHOJS". 

" Gentlemen of the Jury : We feel it our duty to give you in a 
form somewhat less technical than the prayers submitted by 
counsel, some instruction as to th*^ law applicable to the evidence 
in this case, so that after you find the facts proved by the evi- 




*GEORGE SINGLETON KEY. 



dence (which is your exclusive province) you may be able to 
apply the law to them by your verdict. G-eorge Singleton Key, 
one of the prisoners at the bar, stands indicted for tne murder of 
James Mahon, at Navassa Island, on the 14th of September, 
1889. Murder, under the law of the United States, is the felon- 
ious, wilful killing of a human being, with malice aforethought. 
Malice has been defined to be that condition of a man when he is 
totally devoid of social feeling, and fatally bent on mischief, and 
includes not alone hatred and ill will, but every bad and unjusti- 



*The biography of Key will appear in fall in the second edition of this 
pamphlet, along with the biographies of Edward Smith, James Tascar, 
Henry Jones and Cassar Fisher. 



9 

fible motive, and the law presumes that every homicide is with 
malice which has resulted from general malignity and reck- 
less disregard of the lives of others. Malice may be expressed 
or implied; that is to say, it may be evidenced by the express 
declarations of the party charged, or acts showing premeditation 



EDWARD SMITH alias "Devil" 

or previous preparation. Such is express malice. Or it may be 
inferred from the fact accompanying the homicide or the charac- 
ter of the weapon with which the fatal act was committed. This 
is implied malice. There cannot be two kinds of malice. The 
only difference between implied and express malice is in the 
means of proof. Malice is implied in every intentional homicide, 
and where a party is found to have committed an intentional 
homicide it is for him to show the absence of malice. 

"If you find the jurisdictional facts set out in the indictment, 
and under the first count find that George S. Key, on the 14th of 
September, 1889, at ISTavassa Island, the place described in that 
indictment, and by the means described in the indictment, did 
feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, kill James 



10 



Mahon, you must find him guilty in the first count. If you find 
that though Key was guilty of the homicide of Mahon, it was 
without malice aforethought, the unpremeditated result of a 
sudden paroxysm of passion upon sufficient provocation, but 
that the killing was yet unlawful, you may find him guilty of 




JAMES TASCAR. 



manslaughter, and not guilty of murder. But, the jury are in- 
structed, that no words or actual assault will excuse a homicide, 
unless the person committing it had reason to fear immediate 
great personal danger, or extreme bodily harm. Unless you 
shall believe that the witnesses for the United States in their tes- 
timony have greatly perverted the facts attending the killing of 
Mahon, we do not anticipate that you will have any great diffi- 
culty with regard to the charge contained in the first part of the 
first count. The second part of the first count also charges that 
the seventeen other persons therein named, and who are here ar- 
raigned in court, were present with George S. Key at the alleged 
murder, aiding, abetting and assisting him to commit it. These 
parties are charged not with being what are technically in the 
law accessories, but with being aiders and abettors who were 



11 

present — sometimes called principals in the second degree. And 
although in this second part of the count those seventeen defend- 
ants are charged as being present aiding and abetting, the mur- 
der is charged in the first part as having been committed by 
Key. The whole charge is in law, one count against them all, Key 
included, as joint offenders in the same crime, and if you find 
that any or all of them were present, and wilfully, feloniously 
and with malice aforethought, aided, abetted or assisted in kill, 
ing Mahon, then those who were so present are guilty of murder^ 
and may be convicted of murder under the first count. 

"By being present is not meant an actual bodily presence — so 
near that the party might have actually taken a hand in the kill- 
ing of Mahon — but is meant also any who were in the neighbor- 
hood of the place where the crime was committed, performing 
some part in an unlawful undertaking expected to result in 
great bodily harm or death to Mahon, such as preventing his 
escape, keeping watch to prevent escape or to prevent others 
from interfering to protect him, disabling, killing or wounding 
or terrorizing those who might interfere to protect him, or doing 
some such act in furtherance of a common design to put Mahon 
to death or to do him great bodily harm. Persons near enough 
to perform such acts, and in that manner to aid, abet and assist, 
are said to be constructively present. 

"In determining whether or not these defendants, or any of 
them, have been proven to have been either actually or construct- 
ively present, and whether they have been proven to have aided 
or abetted or assisted, yon are to find from the testimony where 
they were when Mahon was killed, and what they were doing at 
that time and immediately preceding that time, and what was 
their design and intention, as indicated by their acts and words 
in the occurrence which preceded the killing of Mahon. If 
from the evidence you find that the white officers were driven 
from the superintendent's house, and were attacked and disarmed 
and some of them killed and wounded, with the purpose and 



12 

design that Mahon, or Mahon together with others, should be 
overpowered and wounded or killed, and that the persons charged 
took part in carrying out that purpose, and at the time of the 
actual killing were so situated that they could be of assistance 
in carrying out that purpose, and did so assist, then these are 
facts from which you may find that any of the defendants who 
so assisted, with knowledge of such common design, are guilty 
as charged in the first count. 

" By the second count Key is charged with the murder of 
Mahon, and the other seventeen defendants are charged with 
being accessories — that is to say, persons who, without being 
either actually or constructively present, did, before the alleged 
murder, feloniously, wilfully, knowingly and maliciously aid, 
abet, cause, procure, command and counsel Key to do the murder. 
" In order to find any conviction under this count you must 
first determine whether, under the instructions hereinbefore 
given to you, with regard to the crime of murder and of malice 
aforethought, Key is guilty of the murder of Mahon, and 
whether the jurisdictional facts alleged in the count have been 
proved. For if Key is not guilty of murder, none of the other 
defendants can be found guilty of being accessories under this 
second count. If you find Key guilty of murder as charged, 
then you are to consider the evidence aff'ecting those of the seven- 
teen other defendants not found by you to have been either 
actually or constructively present assisting in the murder. 

"If you find from the evidence that any of the seventeen 
defendants charged in the second count as accessories who were 
not present assisting, did, before the killing, maliciously counsel, 
incite and abet Key to murder Mahon, then you may find them 
guilty under the second count. In determining whether the 
defendants, or any of them, have been proven guilty under this 
count, you may consider the nature and purpose of any enter- 
prise in which you may find any of the defendants engaged on 
the day of the murder, or before that day, and what was said 



13 

and done by those engaged in it, to the knowledge of the defend- 
ants in respect to taking the life of Mahon. And if you find 
that any of them took part in a combination or riot, or tumult, 
in which the killing of Mahon was incited or instigated, or that 
any of them took part in an attack upon the officers of such a 
desperate character that in the ordinary course of things it must 
incite some of those engaged in it to murder, and that it did 




HENRY JONES. 

incite Key to murder Mahon, then these are facts from which, if 
you find the other facts charged in the second count, you may 
find such of the defendants guilty under the second count. 

"Under the law of the United States any defendant may be 
found guilty of any offense, the commission of which is neces- 
sarily included in that with which he is charged. The crime of 
manslaughter. is always necessarily included in the charge of 
murder, and you are instructed that under the first count of this 
indictment as to any of the defendants whom you find were 
either actually or constructively present assisting in the inten- 
tional killing of Mahon, but as to whom the evidence does not 



14 

convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that they acted with 
malice aforethought, then as to such defendants you may find a 
verdict of not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter. 
But under the second count, you must bear in mind that if yoii 
find Key not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, you 
cannot find any of the other defendants guilty at all under the. 
second count, because accessories who are not either actually or 




Cy^SAR FISHER. 

constructively present cannot be found guilty of aiding and abet- 
ting a manslaughter. The guilt or innocence of any party 
charged here is not to be determined by mere preponderance of 
testimony, but the jury must be satisfied of the truth of every 
fact necessary to constitute the crime of which they find him or 
them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." 

Fifty additional jurors were drawn for the United States Dis- 
trict Court from which to select a jury for the trial of the 
Navassa rioters. Their names are as follows: T. D. Tormey, 
Charles Hope, John E. Swift, Joseph F. Snyder, Jacob Mitnick^ 
John H. Smith, Wm. M. Sindall, J. William S. Jordon, Nathan 



15 

Dorsey, colored, E. Mills, Jr., Abraham G. Mott, H. E. Challis, 
E. Lertz, R. E. Barnes, John R. Monroe, Robert Rennert, Jr., 
Michael Shannon, Charles J. R. Thorpe, Wm. Henry Shirley, 
John H. Anderson, Brice H. Hobbs, AVm. S. Chew, Henry W. 
Marston, Benjamin T. Simms, Wm. T. Murphy, Edward Kim- 
berly, Wm. H. Welsh, J. H. Stone, Charles C. Eichler, Albert 
Eelber, Frank Sullivan, Joseph Renshaw, Jr., Gabriel D. Clark, 
Richard Powell, Dr. F. G. Connolly, William P. Reilly, William 
H. McLean, August Deichman, E. A. S. Blogg, Gabriel H. Cha- 
bot, Marcus Hartman, Samuel D. Buck, John W. Wakeland, J. 
Henry Sirech, Joseph Robb, W. L. Richards, George H. Bright- 
man, Justis Snyder, John Mushaw and James W. Thompson. 



lb 



BIOGRAPHIES 



..^^ 




*ALFRED JONES alias "Texas Shorty." 

Alfred Jones, or '' Texas Shorty," as he is generally called, 
was born in Philadelphia in 1864, being 25 years of age, and 
says he went to Navassa last April. 



*Names marked with an asterisk have been reserved for a fuller account 
of their careers. 



17 




^CHARLES H. SMITH. 



Charles H. Smith, (alias John Ward), was born in 1858, and 
has been to Navassa five times. 



18 




JAMES PHILIPS. 

James Philips was born in Greensboro, and is 22 years old, 
He was at Navassa about eight months. 



19 




ALFRED BROWN, 



Alfred Brown was born in 1844, and is 45 years old; says he 
went to -Navassa three times, the last time being in Sept., 1888, 



20 




Edmund Francis (alias Blue Ball), went to Navassa in Jan- 
uary 1889. 



21 





*JAMES H. ROBINSON. 



James H. Kobinson (alias Snow) was born in Norfolk, Va., 
in 1864 and went to Navassa in March, 1889. 



22 




JAMES JOHNSON. 



James Johnson (alias Thos. Welsh), was born in Carlisle, Pa,, 
and is 22 years old. He went to Navassa last March, arriving 
there on April 3d. His mother lives in Chambersburg, Pa., and 
he lived for 15 years in Washington, D. 0., with his father, 
Thomas Welsh, who is a messenger to the Supreme Court. 



23 




MOSES WILLIAMS. 



Moses Williams (alias Dakota), was born in Dakota. He is a 
half-breed Indian, and was educated at Carlisle, Pa. He is 22 
years old and went to Navassa in March, 1889, and worked in the 
bake shop. He was held as a prisoner with Key and the others, 
but the jury that convicted Key acquitted Williams and dis- 
agreed as to the other sixteen men indicted for rioting. 



24 




*EDWARD WOODFORK. 



Edward Woodfork was put on the stand as a witness in the 
Key case. 



26 












NORMAN WOOSTER. 

Gorman Wooster (alias Juggler) was born in 1867, his home 
being in Stockbriclge, Mass. He was called " Juggler " on the 
Island and went there in January, 1889. 



26 




CHARLES H. DAVIS. 



Charles H. Davis (alias Pompey) was born in Philadelphia, 
Pa., and is 22 years old. He went to Navassa in August, 1888. 



27 




STEPHEN PETERS. 



{Stephen Peters was born in Salisbury, Mel., and is 28 years old. 
The last time he went to Navassa was in September, 1<S88, bnt 
he had been tliere preAioasly. 



28 




^AIVIOS LEE. 



Amos Lee was boi'ii in 1862, and belongs in GeorgetoAvn, 
D. C. He went to Navassa July last. 



rp^ 04,* 



GEORGE M. LANE, 

ATTORNEY AT LAW 

213 NORTH CALVERT STREET, 

OFFICE HOURS 9 TO 4. BALTIMORE. 

PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON, 

SOUTH BALTIMORE, WEST BALTIMORE, 

MAIN OFFICE. 112 S. SHARP ST,. Residence and Branch Office, 

Opp. John Wesley M. E. Ciinrch. 873 BOYD STREET. 



Hours : 9 to 11 A. M., 2 to 4 P. M., Hours : 8 to 9 A. M., 1 to 2 P. M., 
7 to 8 P. M. 6 to 7 P. M. 



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